


Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

by chatemms



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7305685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chatemms/pseuds/chatemms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrien receives the worst news he could have ever imagined and lives to tell the tale. Not easily, but he lives. He has to live. For her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

_ You're taking all the sunshine away _

_ Making out like you're the mainline - I knew that _

_ Cos you're a cool cat _

_ Tapping on the toe with a new hat _

 

A hand forced it’s way out from the blanket cocoon Adrien had trapped himself in, and it grasped around for the ringtone going off nearby.  _ Too loud, too loud, too loud. _ When his hand felt a vaguely cell phone shaped object, he grabbed hold and pulled it back to him under the covers, pressing answer without even opening his eyes.

 

“Hello?” He asked, sounding a little bit annoyed. He didn’t mean to, he was grumpy when he was woken up from a very much needed nap.

 

“Adrien, honey, I need you to stay calm.” His mother-in-law’s voice called out through the phone, her yelling causing him to flinch and jerk the phone away from him. Slowly rising and letting the blanket fall to a pile on the floor, he looked at his phone and saw the contact.  _ My Lady _ was the one who had called him. He quickly pulled the phone back to his ear.

 

“Sabine? What’s going on? Where’s Mari?” His heart forced him wide awake as it started to pound while his brain struggled to regain all of it’s function from the rude awakening.

 

“I’m with her right now,” she sounded panicked.  _ Was that a siren in the background? _ “We’re on our way to the hospital.”

 

He jumped to his feet, getting tripped up on the blanket around his ankles and barely making it out in one piece as he ran down the hall. “What’s going on? Did she go into labor? Did her water break?” His breathing came in short gasps as he sprinted around the apartment like a chicken with it’s head cut off.

 

“We don’t know for sure,” she started talking to someone else and he struggled to catch any hint of what they were saying but only heard mumbles. “Tom called an ambulance and we’re almost to the hospital.”

 

“Sabine, is she okay? Is the baby okay?” He didn’t realize he had yelled it at her until he was done.

 

“I don’t know. I’ll send you the address,” a sound that he couldn’t identify made it’s way out of her mouth. “Please hurry.”

 

The line went dead and he dropped his phone on the bed, having made his way to their bedroom somehow in his panic. Sweat had begun to collect on his neck and palms, his legs threatening to fall out from under him. They had talked about this a million times, prepared a bag, made a plan. What was he supposed to do? His brain couldn’t formulate any recollection on what they had decided and just stood there frozen.  _ Why had she sounded so scared? _

 

His text tone echoing around the room broke him out of his stupor and he leap across the room in one step, pulling on a pair of jeans over his boxers and somehow managing to get a shirt over his head with only a little bit of trouble. He looked down at the duffle bag on the floor of the walk in and he quickly grabbed for it, hitting his head against the wall in his hurry. He hissed, jerking his head back up and rubbing it with one hand while the other held a death grip around the bag. “Ugh, shit!” He yelled into the silence, grabbing his car keys and wallet off the counter as he jogged out of the apartment, barely remembering to lock the door behind him.

 

If anyone had ever deserved a speeding ticket, it was probably Adrien at that moment. Speed limits and stop signs were hardly necessary when your wife needed you by her side at the exact moment you were on the wrong side of town. Making record time across the city and thanking every miracle that he hadn’t been pulled over on the way there, he navigated his way through the confusing roadmap of the hospital and parked by the Emergency Room.  _ That’s where they would have taken her, right? It was an emergency _ , at least he assumed. He silently hoped it wasn’t.

 

He rushed in the doors and stood face to face with a large security guard with a metal detector wand. The guard looked him over sternly from 6 inches above and his face softened, obviously seeing Adrien was in a panic. “Where do I-”

 

“Go through that arch and turn left. There will be a desk with people who can tell you everything you need to know.” The guard turned around, placing the wand on the counter behind him without using it, and Adrien took off without a second thought.

 

Fighting every urge in his body that told him to sprint, he quickly walked over to the nurse at what he assumed was at the right desk. She glanced at him from the paperwork she had been filling out and set her pen down, folding her hands over the papers and happily asking, “How can I help you, sir?”

 

“I need to find my wife.” His own voice didn’t sound familiar to him as he gripped the counter before him. The nurse’s eyebrows furrowed together in concern. “She came here in an ambulance and I need to find her right now.” 

 

The nurse gave a nod and pulled out her keyboard, clicking a few times before looking back up at him. “What’s her name?”

 

He took a deep breath. “Marinette Agreste.”

 

“Adrien?” He heard someone call from behind him and he whipped his head around so quickly he got dizzy. Tom was walking toward him down the hall, having just pushed through a set of heavy swinging doors. Adrien waved the nurse off as he hurried over to the large man, wringing his sweating hands together.

 

“Tom, what’s happening? Where is she?” As he got closer, he noticed that Tom looked extremely pale and his jaw was gripped tight. He motioned for Adrien to follow him as he pushed through the double doors once again.

 

“We need to hurry.” Was all he said as he stared ahead down the hall.

 

Adrien’s heart skipped another beat as it continued to pound against his chest. “Why? What’s wrong with her?”

 

Tom gave him a side glance as he led him around corners and down hallways. “She wants to see you before she goes into surgery but she’s in a lot of pain so you need to keep it brief.”

 

“Surgery? Why does she need surgery?” Adrien watched as Tom set his jaw, staring straight ahead as a tear fell down his cheek. His heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach. He looked ahead of them and saw a row of rooms with glass walls, each holding numerous monitors and machines that were connected to beds holding people. Scanning the rooms, he saw Sabine hunched over a bed down the hall and he started to run. When he pushed open the sliding door, he suddenly felt like he was going to be sick.

 

Sabine was staring at him with red eyes and tear stained cheeks, holding a very, very pale hand. A pale hand that belonged to the love of his life.

 

Marinette was deathly white and coated in sweat, her bangs sticking to her forehead and the side of her face. Her eyes were closed and her breath came in short gulps, her chest heaving with each breath. Her 7 month pregnant stomach was very visible beneath the light sheet that had been placed over her, and he could plainly see there were a number of different wires connected to it. An IV ran into her arm and he let his eyes flick over the different beeping machines that were connected to her.

 

Sabine turned to Marinette again, leaning down to her. “Marinette, baby, Adrien is here.”

 

Marinette’s eyes slid open and her mouth opened and closed. Sabine waved him over and he crossed the room in three steps, taking her place at the bedside and holding the pale hand. Sabine walked out of the room and into the arms of her husband, giving the two a moment alone.

 

“Hey Kitty,” Marinette’s voice was soft and forced as a small smile came to her face.

 

Adrien forced a smile, wrapping both of his hands around hers as he pulled a nearby chair up to the bed. “Hey Bugaboo.” She swallowed hard and her eyes squeezed shut as a very visible shiver ran down her body. Her free hand moved to rest on her belly, rubbing in small circles.

 

“I have to go into surgery,” her voice sounded about ready to break as tears welled up in the corner of her eyes. “I just wanted to see you first.”

 

Adrien felt himself on the verge of a breakdown, his eyes searching hers desperately as the tears started to fall from her bloodshot, blue eyes. “Your dad said you’re in a lot of pain.”

 

She shook her head, even as her teeth grit. “It’s not that bad.” She was lying and they both knew it. He bit the inside of his cheek, the pressure behind his eyes starting to build as he tried his best to hold it off. “Adrien,” her voice grew almost impossibly quiet as her hand tried to take a firmer hold of his, “I’m scared.”

 

His resolve broke and the tears fell. “Don’t be scared. You’re so strong and brave.” His voice cracked and he lifted one of his hands to wipe away her tears. She turned her head into his touch and he cupped her cheek, rubbing it with his thumb. “You’re going to get your surgery and then as soon as you come out, I’m going to be waiting right here with a bowl of strawberry ice cream. Okay?”

 

Her eyes started to drift closed as she nodded and whispered, “okay.” An alarm began to go off above him and he jumped to his feet, her grip on his hand going limp as he grasped her impossibly harder.

 

“Nurse? Anyone? Help!” He yelled, his head whipping back and forth between looking at her and out the door. Within seconds, three nurses in blue scrubs flew into the room, two going to each side of the bed as the third started to pull him away from her, his arms falling to his sides as she mumbled something he couldn’t hear and pulled him further away. The nurses got the bed rolling and he watched as the other joined them, pulling the bed away from the wall and hurrying out of the room. He followed after them out into the hall and stood watching as they rushed the bed away and through another swinging set of doors, yelling things he didn’t understand to each other.

 

He wrapped his arms tight around his middle as he looked over to where Tom held a sobbing Sabine close to his chest and looked off down the hallway with empty eyes. When the doors finally stopped swinging and the hallway went silent, he dropped to his knees and cried.

 

* * *

 

Time moved impossibly slowly from where Adrien sat staring at the clock. A cup of cold coffee in his hand and his back hurting from being hunched over so long, he stared at the clock with half lidded eyes. It had been five hours since he had watched his wife being carted away, but it felt like days. Sabine had tried to get him to drink and eat, but he just stared at the clock. Eventually, she stopped trying, going a few seats over and sitting down with a tight grip on her own coffee cup.

 

Adrien thought for sure that if he spent ten more seconds staring at the clock without knowing what was going on, he was going to explode. He was going to spontaneously combust and they would have to bring him back to life from the sheer force of his heart bursting. He counted it down.

 

_ Ten. _

 

_ Nine. _

 

_ Eight. _

 

_ Seven. _

 

_ Six. _

 

_ Five. _

 

_ Four. _

 

_ Three. _

 

_ Two. _

 

“Mr. Agreste?” He shot to his feet and spun toward the voice, facing a short, balding man in green scrubs with his hands clasped together. “My name is Dr. Matthews and I need to have a word with you.” He crossed the room and saw Sabine and Tom slowly rise out of the corner of his eye. The doctor looked between the couple and him very cautiously before facing Adrien.

 

“Has your wife’s condition been explained to you?” Adrien shook his head no and the doctor sighed, pushing a pair of thin rimmed glasses higher on his nose. “Your wife had a mild urinary tract infection which took a turn for the worst. The infection poured into her system and caused her liver to begin to fail before attacking her other organs. We attempted to stop the infection, but her liver is past saving. I’m sorry.”

 

Adrien shook his head, “then can’t you get her a new liver? Don’t people live for years on dialysis?”

 

The doctor took a deep breath. “Her other organs were too damaged, she wouldn’t be passed by the transplant committee. Dialysis will buy her two or three weeks at the most, all of which will be spent in a hospital bed.”

 

“Then that’s the obvious choice, right? It buys her more time!” The desperation poured into Adrien’s voice and he felt his body deflate as the doctor shook his head once more.

 

“Placing her on dialysis is not possible while she’s 7 months pregnant. And if we perform a C-section, there’s no way she would survive the surgery. I’m sorry.”

 

He heard Sabine sob behind him and his world began to spiral out of control. “So you came out here to tell me,” he paused to take a breath as the words pushed through, “that my wife is going to die.”

 

The doctor looked between the couple hunched together behind Adrien and then back to him. “I’m very sorry, but yes.”

 

Adrien dragged a hand through his hair, the other moving to rest on his hip as he covered his mouth with his hand. He felt sick. He wanted to pass out and vomit and die right there on the floor. He wanted to tell them to take his liver and give her all his organs, anything to make her live, but he couldn’t form the words. Tears poured from his eyes and a strangled sob was choked off behind his hand. Then it hit him.

 

“What about our baby?”

 

The doctor swallowed hard, “we need to deliver the baby immediately, it’s her only shot.”

 

“But,” Adrien paused, “if we deliver the baby, Marinette dies.” The doctor slowly nodded.

 

“I am asking you to make an impossible choice. A choice I would never wish on anyone in the world. But,” the doctor placed a light hand on Adrien’s arm, “it’s a choice you’re going to have to make. And fast.”

 

The world stopped. His entire world just grinded to a jarring halt. It pressed pause on the sympathetic face of Dr. Matthews, the sobbing form of Tom and Sabine, and the far off pull of his bond with Marinette breaking. She was dead. There was nothing they could do. She was gone.

 

But he could save their baby. He could save the child they had made together. What choice did he have? Let them both die? He couldn’t.

 

“Do the C-section.” The doctor gave him a swift nod and turned on his heel, running down the hall and back into the surgical wing.

 

Adrien looked back to his mother and father-in-law. The parents that had just learned they had lost their only child. Their pride and joy. He began to crumble and break as he took an empty step forward.

 

Sabine raised her head from Tom’s chest, her entire face covered in pain and tears. She reached out for Adrien and pulled him in, wrapping her arms tight around him as she continued to cry. Tom just hugged them both, leaving Adrien in the middle of the grieving parents. And then, he started to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to die.

 

He held tight to the shivering form of Marinette’s mother and he cried.

 

* * *

 

As he followed a nurse through more empty, silent hallways in the middle of the night, he ignored everything he was thinking. He let his feet carry him as he did his best to turn his brain off, to keep moving on autopilot. The parents had chosen to stay behind, to be together, to fill out paperwork, to do things he just couldn’t do at the moment. He was too numb.

 

The nurse instructed him through a sanitization process, scrubbing his hands and arms as she draped a gown over his clothes. He pulled on thick rubber gloves and let the small hands place a mask over his nose and mouth. He silently followed her into the darkened room, hearing the constant beep and whir of the machines around him. He followed the nurse down a row of incubators, each holding a sleeping baby connected to machines. It was almost sickening. And then she stopped.

 

“Here,” she placed her hand on the edge of one of the incubators, “is your baby girl.”

 

His eyes travelled slowly to the sleeping baby as his heart beat started to pump rapidly again. 

 

She was so small, smaller than the other babies he had seen in the room. She had tubes connected to her arms and one in her mouth, probably assisting her in the steady rise and fall of her tiny chest. A tuft of smoothed black hair rested on the top of her head and his eyes filled with tears once again as he choked back the cry. Her eyes closed, she slept soundly beneath the bright light above her. She looked so peaceful. She looked like Marinette when she slept. She looked like a miracle.

 

He reached his hand out toward her but felt a pressure on his wrist. His eyes met the nurses and she shook her head. “Not yet.” He nodded, resting his hands on the edge of the container as he just watched her breathe in and out. She was alive. “We need a name for the chart,” the nurse said quietly, as if she was unsure if she should say anything at all.

 

The tears fell endlessly down his cheeks and he bit his lip. The love of his life was dead, but their baby was alive. She was breathing and she had black hair and she had Mari’s nose. As he felt his legs growing weak once more, he remembered the nurse’s question. He remembered that he knew the answer.

  
“Emma. My wife wanted to name her Emma.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry. For the pain. It hurts me too, if that helps. I have more ideas for this fic but not that much motivation, so let me know on tumblr if you really want me to continue it. My url is emmsdibs.


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